One of Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s consultants swears this photo is not what it seems.
Via The Miami New Times:
Joshua Cooper, a Tallahassee political consultant paid more than $500,000 by Florida Gov. Rick Scott to dig up dirt on Scott’s enemies over the years, swears the photo above was simply a snapshot taken at an unfortunate angle. Cooper is adamant the photo absolutely does not show him holding an ice penis next to a mannequin’s groin.
“It is not at all what it looks like,” says Cooper, who spends his spare time as a semiprofessional barbecue chef and insists he was simply throwing away a large slab of ice while cooking in a Memphis competition. Someone took a snapshot at exactly the wrong moment and posted the photo online, Cooper says, making an accidental sexual tableau with the female mannequin.
The photo has been making the rounds in Florida political circles since it was posted online in May. Though Cooper says the image was deleted upon his request, he says one of his many enemies in Tallahassee is recirculating the image to discredit him.
“That was a photo one of my barbecue teammates took,” Cooper tells New Times. “That was our ice luge. It melted, so I was picking it up and throwing it over the fence there. But from the angle he took the picture from, my teammates thought it looked funny and posted it online.”
He says he has three daughters and a young son and clarifies that he does not hump mannequins.
His barbecue team is called the Swinos. Their slogan, according to their Twitter account, is “Getting it moist, and keeping it there.”